In the Eye of the Beholder
by thefishoutofwater
Summary: Sometimes people see what they want to see. Is it friendship? Is it platonic love? Is it something more? 6 perspectives on Meredith and Alex


A/N I've always been a fan of those 'five times' type stories. So here is my go although there are six! Alex and Meredith friendship / relationship depending on who is looking.

1 – Set post 6 x 19 Sympathy for the Parents

2 – Set post 11 x 17 With or Without You

3 – Not a post-ep per say but lets assume it slips in somewhere after 12 x 5 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

4 – Smack bang in the middle of 12 x 9 The Sound of Silence

5 – This is a tad AU and fits early season 13 – prior to 13 x 6 Roar. It is a homage of sorts to 12 x 10 All I Want is You

6\. Post the deleted scene from 13 x 24 Ring of Fire

* * *

 **1\. Aaron and Amber**

Aaron Karev cracked his tired neck as he pulled his van up in front of the house. The front door was flung open and his sister, hair flying, ran out to meet him,

"Hey you're back! Did you see him? Did he fix it? How is he?"

Aaron pulled himself tiredly from the front seat.

"Give a guy a minute Amber," he begged, "I've been driving for days. There was an awful accident as I came through South Dakota."

"Yeah, yeah I get it. Driving. Terrible bore," her tone was teasing as she came closer for a hug, eying his discoloured nose and forehead suspiciously,

"Woah there, don't." he called out alarmed, "I'm still a bit tender round the middle." He pulled his top up slightly to flash a large surgical bandage.

"So, he did fix it then? I told you he would."

"Well he didn't do it himself but his boss Dr Bailey and his…"

"His what?"

"Let's say his friend, yes his friend Meredith did it."

"That's so cool. Our brother has friends who can do surgeries." Her eyes shone with hero worship, "Oh and you're fixed that's pretty cool too!"

"So, tell me, how is he? Did you take a photo? What did he look like? Where does he live? I bet he's got a nice house, right?"

Aaron sat on the steps of the dilapidated porch,

"One thing at a time. How's mom?" he lowered his voice.

"Fine. She's gone out to the bingo thing at the hall."

"Okay. Well what I say goes no further alright. We don't want to wind her up any." Amber nodded her agreement, "So, he looks good. I mean older, but good. His hair's shorter and he's not as bulked up as when he was wrestling. He's living in a big house with a couple of other doctors," he paused as she looked ready to interrupt, hungry for details, "an older guy called Derek, his friend Meredith and another one, younger called Lexie. I did not get a photo of him but I do have a printout from Meredith of my hernia which I thought we could hang on the fridge!"

Amber wrinkled her nose in distaste and ignored his final statement,

"Is she pretty?"

"They both are. Anyway I'll hit you with the big stuff first. Big brother went and got himself married, but now she's left and he's going to get divorced."

Amber started wide eyed,

"But what about Meredith?" she had caught the tone in Aaron's voice at the beginning of the story.

"I don't know if they're together. She was really kind and helpful with my paperwork and the surgery and stuff and she's really protective of him. Told me to back off and was pretty quick to shut the other doctors down." He looked away from his sister not quite willing to confess to their brawl, "Also she also seems to be able to calm him down quickly and whilst I'm not sure she knew about everything he's been through, she gets him. Like really gets him. You could tell."

"But they aren't together?" Amber sought clarification,

"Well I didn't see them being mushy and she only called him her friend, but there was something. They're close. If they aren't together yet I reckon they will be."

* * *

 **2\. OB-GYN Interns**

Jo Wilson was sitting in the cafeteria, procedure notes in front of her as she studied for her afternoon surgery whilst chasing the remains of her lunch around the plate with her fork. The sound of a familiar name from the table of interns behind her broke her concentration,

"I don't blame her though," the soft, vaguely familiar southern voice continued, "he's hot. I mean not a man of many words but my oh my, he sure does looks good."

Jo heard a tray hitting the table as a third voice joined the conversation,

"Is she going on about Dr Karev again?" A male voice, chimed in, "he is _fine_. Not going to lie not the kind of guy I imagined as a pedes surgeon but a nice surprise whenever he pops by."

But did hear about his little lovers spat yesterday?"

Jo frowned. She had not seen Alex all day yesterday; he'd been in surgery she'd been busy down in the pit.

"Hear about it? I saw some of it." The other woman at the table, a New Englander by accent re-joined the conversation, "I was having my lunch in the OR gallery,"

"Side note. That's weird. We are OB-GYNs not surgeons – it's not an obvious place for lunch."

"I find it peaceful. Its quiet and the surgery can be amazing to watch. There's this aura. It's special. Not yesterday though it turned into a bit of a shit show."

"Really?" the southerner was agog whilst Jo put her fork down and concentrated on listening whilst not being caught.

"Yeah. I mean they were obviously tense with each other from the get go but they still worked beautifully together. But anyway, they hadn't been going for long when he started sniping at her. I've never seen two people argue whilst still working in such careful synchronisation. The body language was fascinating!"

Jo rubbed her crumpled forehead. It was unusual for Dr Robbins and Alex to argue over a patient in the OR and even stranger that he'd not mentioned it as they lay in bed catching up on their day and reconnecting.

"I didn't hear much of it. That scrub nurse with the glasses figured out pretty quickly that they weren't going to stop and switched the intercom off."

"Well it makes sense they'd fought I guess. I mean when I saw them outside the entrance in the evening, the way he was pushing to hold her, and she was pushing him away it looked like there was some lingering resentment there. But they looked so sweet together when he won out. I'd kill for someone who looked after me the way he did when he did her coat up for her. So gentle and tender."

A laugh from the male voice,

"Never mind looking for never ending devotion. You just need to get laid and stop stalking the surgical attendings." A pause whilst he chewed a mouthful of his food, "I think you might have it wrong no matter how much you seem insistent on imagining these people you don't know together. I heard she was married,"

Jo rolled her eyes as he took another mouthful. She had guessed Alex hadn't been in the OR with Robbins yesterday, given it seemed very unlikely he'd be hugging her in the car park or making sure she was dressed appropriately for the chilly night air. Dr Grey on the other hand….

The speaker continued,

"Yeah she's married to Shepherd in Neuro."

There we have it thought Jo, fatalistically. While she was busy enjoying an interesting case of leech in the nose in trauma yesterday her boyfriend had apparently been fighting and then snuggling his best friend all over the hospital.

"No way! Absolutely no way she's gay!"

"No! Not female Shepherd, male Shepherd – you know the one with the remarkable hair and jawline. I think he's the current Shepherd's sister. Anyway, I heard from Trish the new nurse who transferred from the NICU that they are married but he's moved to Washington and she refused to go."

"Probably because of the lovely Dr Karev. Its obvious they've got something going on. I mean you only have to watch them together."

"Nah," the New Englander was dismissive, and Jo felt like hugging the girl, "I heard they are the only two left of this horribly unlucky set of interns. That's all you see - last man standing syndrome. He's shacked up with one of his residents, you'll have seen her trailing behind him when he comes up for a consult. She's the miserable looking one. At least that's what Trish said."

Jo flushed as the conversation continued,

"I don't care what you say there's something there. If you had seen them last night you'd see it too. You can't avoid love like that.

* * *

 **3\. Day Care**

Pippa Crow looked at her watch and looked forward to the end of her shift in the Day Care centre. They had been full all day and several days of rain had all the kids starting to go a little cabin crazy and noise levels had been high. She heard the buzz of a security card at the main entrance and Dr Karev walked in. He nodded in her direction and headed into the larger room.

"Alex!" a flash of scruffy blond hair flew across the room and attached itself to Karev's leg. Pippa smiled as he lifted the little boy high in the air eliciting squeals of joy,

"Bailey. Dude. How's your day been? What have you been up to?" Bailey wriggled to the floor and took Alex's hand tugging him over to the table where he'd been sitting chattering away as he did so.

Pippa watched them as the doctor sat unselfconsciously on a small toddler sized red chair admiring what Pippa knew another colourful and confused family portrait. When she next looked over he had one of his valuable, surgeon hands on the table as Bailey drew around it, and on it, in a bright green pen. She smiled; in previous centres she had found the surgeons the most difficult and stand offish of parents when it came to their kids. This doctor, paediatrician or not, biological father or not, was decidedly hands on.

She was distracted from her thoughts by parents coming to pick their kids up and she bundled, coats, bags, and lunch boxes together enjoying the reduction in volume as the room slowly emptied out. She was helping a little girl pick out a book in the reading corner when she saw Dr Grey enter the room. The surgeon scanned the room for her son and spotted him lying on his belly across a carpet carefully putting together a complex looking structure, Dr Karev lying flat out along side head propped up in his hands him offering words of encouragement. Her usually serious face softened as she watched the two and as Pippa came to join her she blushed a little, embarrassed at being caught watching.

"I'm just going to pop to the infant's room and grab Ellis and then I'll be back."

"Sure thing Dr Grey. She should be all ready for you. I know she finished her nap right on schedule when I was in there earlier."

Several minutes later she was back, large diaper bag sliding off her shoulder and a wriggling babe in arms. With an almost second sense of her that Pippa had seen before she watched Dr Karev hop to his feet and head over to her reaching for the baby. Ellis stretched out to him willingly as her mother smiled and muttered her thanks. Swapping seamlessly, Dr Grey helped her son into his coat and loaded him up with his little rucksack whilst Dr Karev tickled a delighted Ellis who pummelled his five-o-clock shadow with glee.

"Night Pippa, Night Anya." Bailey cheered as they headed towards the door,

"Night Bailey, night Dr Grey, Dr Karev." Pippa stood at the door as she watched the little boy hold out his hand to grab at both adults who smiled at each other over his head and swung him down the corridor.

She turned and smiled at her colleague,

"Second chances or not they're a cute little family, aren't they?" she queried as she bustled to pin up Bailey's latest creation on the art wall.

"Oh Pip," Anya laughed, "they aren't together."

Pippa tipped her head towards the picture as the laughter of the three echoed back up the corridor,

"Do you think they know that?"

* * *

 **4\. The Nurse at the Station**

Libby Wells was relatively new to Grey – Sloan Memorial and had been thrilled to be invited out for lunch pre-shift by two of the other nurses she worked with. The bar over the road from the hospital was busy with other hospital staff eating pre-shift or letting their hair down early as they clocked out for the weekend,

"I can't help but notice there aren't any of the attendings over here," she commented as she poured took a drag of her diet coke, "do the doctors go to a different bar?"

"No," Mel Craven responded, "it's a pretty casual sort of place usually." She stopped and looked around, "Over there by the dart board they're doctors from ophthalmology. It's just the surgical teams missing, and I think they're all just super busy because of what happened to Dr Grey. Between her and Shepherd being out and Pierce and Karev running around after the kids and her and working it's left them a bit short."

"How many kids have they got?" she asked interested.

"There's three of them all under seven or eight I reckon."

"And Dr Pierce is her sister?"

"Yeah, it's a long story!" Cynthia Anders interjected.

"Well he's lucky to have her around to help. That's a hell of a thing for a man to manage even if he is a paediatric doctor."

Cynthia and Mel turned to Libby confused,

"What do you mean?"

"Her husband?" Libby prompted, "Dr Karev? I'm saying he's lucky he's got family to help whilst his wife is so badly hurt. Do you know she still has no hearing even after three surgeries?"

Cynthia, a nurse at the hospital for over fifteen years laughed,

"Oh, you've got the wrong end of the stick honey! Alex Karev is nobody's husband. He'd also be keen to correct you on the doctor thing," an eyebrow was raised cynically, "he's a surgeon not just a paediatrician!"

"They're together though, right? I've seen him. Every time she's been down to the OR he's been right there with her gripping her hand for dear life but the Chief won't let him, or Dr Pierce in. That's how you treat a next of kin. I saw him the other day hovering by the OR nose to the door because Dr Avery told him he could not go up to the gallery. Pretty sure I saw him putting the kids in his car earlier in the week. And he's nearly always with her during rounds and when she's being checked,"

Mel interrupted,

"Him and half the surgical staff."

Undeterred she continued,

"He's in there for at least part of every night. The first night he fell asleep with his head on the bed right next to her and I'm pretty sure he was crying. I leave him a blanket out now and he sleeps on the chair where he can watch her."

The other two smiled at her. Cynthia said,

"I've seen the two of them grow up from little intern chickadees. They're close sure, but they are not together. To be honest I think she's still grieving her husband. He died over a year ago, he was Dr Shepherd's brother."

Libby took the final bite of her cheeseburger and nodded at her new colleagues unconvinced.

Six hours later she looked to the clock. Any minute now she thought. Sure enough, not more than ten minutes later she watched Dr Karev, changed from his scrubs, creep into the room opposite the nurses' station. He stopped for barely a second before pulling the guard rail down and climbing into the bed to carefully curl around the patient. Libby strained slightly to see if he'd move as Dr Blake lingered outside of the room, but he didn't stir even as she pulled the door gently closed.

She watched fascinated as he tenderly cradled Dr Grey, his nose caressing the side of her face in a gesture that was almost too intimate to watch. He reached down and handed her a tissue and then propped himself half up on an elbow over her as though they had been sharing a bed for years before leaning in so closely that even an overly interested observer could not see exactly what he was doing. Libby did not need to see. She knew he was kissing her.

She smiled to herself. The others were clearly blind.

* * *

 **5\. Dr Carr**

"Can I call you Alex?" the therapist spoke in a carefully moderated tone, designed to be calming. His new patient was somewhat more sardonic,

"Can I call you Walter?

"Touché Dr Karev," he smirked at his newest patient and tapped the file in front of him, "Is the title important to you?

"Look Dr Carr, this is not my first rodeo. Bailey means well but we both know this is a waste of time. I know what I did. You know what I did and no matter what Meredith and Bailey say we both know by the time the end of play is called I'm not going to be a doctor anymore. Hospital enforced therapy will be the least of my worries." He stopped and tilted his head towards the other doctor, "So let's do the time, tick the boxes and get on our separate ways."

Walter Carr dropped his chin onto his finger and pondered how much his newest patient sounded like his friend. Despite years of professional training he couldn't help but say,

"Dr Karev I am no tape and glue guy. If we're doing this. We're doing this."

Alex frowned briefly in confusion before throwing a half smile in the therapist's direction,

"Tape and glue? Mer right?" he made a noise that could have been a brief laugh, "she said you were good. I promised her I'd try."

"Let's talk about why you're here then."

"You know why I'm here. I saw something I didn't like, temper blew and nearly killed a guy. I've been living on borrowed time for years and now my times up."

"That's very fatalistic."

"I'd say realistic. Look I did it. And I'd say I did it for the best of intentions but that's not going to hold any water with the judge. I can't even say I wouldn't do it again if the same circumstances came up. No matter how much Meredith wants to pretend there's a way out of this for me. There's not."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Really?" he raised an eyebrow, Dr Carr stared back steadily so he continued, "I _feel_ ," he stressed the word, "guilty. I mean, I'm a surgeon I should be saving people not nearly killing them. But mostly right now I'm worried about Mer. I know she will be fine. Fine's always been her favourite word. But there were five of us and now there's two of us and she is not facing up to the fact at all. She has this other support network, this family, if she'd just let them in but she pushes Amelia away. I mean I get it the woman can talk but she wants to be there, she wants to help. And Maggie? She really only lets Maggie close when it's about the kids and for all her smarts she's not much more than a kid herself. I worry she's going to feel abandoned all over again. And the kids. Shit. Zola remembers her dad and Bailey sort of does, or at least he knows the stories and now someone else is just going to walk out on them?"

"Dr Shepherd died." Carr was quiet and non-judgemental as he reflected on what he'd heard,

"Well sure he did but they're little kids; all they know is that he's gone. My dad left me, and my siblings, and he was an ass and not at all missed but we still felt deserted." He took a deep breath, "Look, Meredith's biggest fear is that she'll turn into her mom. She's not that. She's warm once you get to know her and kind and loving. A brilliant surgeon for sure but also a mom. Still I worry that she'll retreat into her work when I go. She did it when Shepherd pissed off to Washington and she ran from everything and everyone when he died. The kids shouldn't have to take any more upsets. They need people around them. They all do."

"Dr Karev. We're talking a lot about Meredith. Do you have feelings for Meredith? Are you in love with Meredith?"

"What?" A nervous laugh, "No… no." A violent headshake.

Walter Carr hid a smile. Really these two were perfect for each other.

* * *

 **6\. Arizona**

Maggie Pierce stared unseeing at the sandwich she had just made. Intellectually she knew she was coming down from a huge adrenalin rush post the explosion and evacuation of the hospital, but she still felt tired, nauseous, and cold. April's words also kept playing in her head. She shook it slightly, and reluctantly carried her sandwich to the sofa. She flipped apathetically at a journal from the side table.

She jumped, shocked to hear a knock at the door.

"Hey." A slightly embarrassed looking Arizona Robbins stood on the front porch, wine bottle in hand, "I split up with Minnick."

"Okay?" Maggie was confused,

"April's still at the hospital, De Luca's been shipped over to Seattle Pres. to help with our patients and I…"

"I get it. You don't want to be alone?"

Maggie withdrew from the front door and headed to the kitchen. Arizona looked relieved,

"Logically I get it's just a come down but… days like this I miss Sofia so much. I mean ideally I just want to hold my little girl you know?"

"I know. The sitter was still here when I got in and the temptation to wake Bailey or even Ellis was huge. All I can smell is fire and the idea of her fresh little baby smell... Man! Am I a bad Auntie or what?"

"Where is Meredith? I thought she'd left before me?"

"She's home. Zola's been going through a bit of anti-sleep phase at the moment so they were having some quiet story time. You might want to go up and see if you can get Mer rather than shouting. I'll get this opened and see if I can find some more food."

Maggie busied herself putting together a mismatched plate of cheese and leftovers. She placed in on the table, pulled out glasses and poured herself a generous splash. After her second mouthful she wondered where Arizona was. Quietly she padded up the stairs spotting the foetal surgeon hovering outside Meredith's half open bedroom door a wide smile on her face. Seeing Maggie, she put a finger to her lips,

"This is perfect!" she whispered still grinning.

Maggie looked confused and stepped behind her to look in. Meredith lay fast asleep on her left-hand side, slightly angled with toes hanging off the bed and her head on the centre of the pillows. Mirroring her, but with a relaxed, half smile on his face lay Alex, his right arm curved above his body and lying gently on Meredith's hair. Between them Zola lay spread-eagled, one hand wrapped in Meredith's top. Completing the scene and clearly a later addition to the group on the bed, Bailey lay horizontally, his little head resting on Alex calf, a thumb in his mouth.

"I didn't…" she began,

"Shhhh!" Arizona pulled her gently away, "Be quiet. Don't wake them."

"I didn't even know he was home." Maggie sounded shell shocked.

Arizona took a final look at the slumbering group with a fond smile and headed back down the stairs, Maggie following slackly in her wake,

"How long?" asked Arizona, "I mean I'd wondered obviously. Is there anyone in the hospital who doesn't wonder? But how long has it actually been going on?"

"I don't know." Maggie felt foolish, "I'm not sure it is. I mean Riggs?"

"It must be." Arizona took a mouthful of her wine, "I've been in love. Been part of a family and I'm telling you now that's what that is upstairs. They're being a family." She smiled and clinked her glass against Maggie's, "And I for one am thrilled!"


End file.
